By Ilene Fleischmann

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Makau W. Mutua, dean of the University at
Buffalo Law School, has been elected to the prestigious Council on
Foreign Relations, a New York City-based think tank and membership
organization that studies major international issues and publishes
the influential journal Foreign Policy.

With more than 4,300 members, the council's ranks include top
government officials, renowned scholars, business leaders,
acclaimed journalists, prominent attorneys and distinguished
nonprofit professionals. Members participate in meetings, panel
discussions, interviews, lectures, book clubs, and film screenings
to discuss and debate major foreign policy issues. In addition,
they enjoy broad access to world leaders, senior government
officials, members of Congress and prominent thinkers.

The membership rolls include former Treasury Secretary Robert
Rubin, who chairs the organization, and such statesmen as Bill
Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell; senior
journalists such as Fareed Zakaria, Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric;
senior academics such as Columbia University President Lee
Bollinger and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.; and Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, along with other senior lawyers
and judges.

On recommendation of the membership committee, the council's
board of directors elected Mutua as a life member, effective
immediately. New members are nominated in writing and seconded by
at least three other members of the council.

Mutua is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and the Floyd H. &
Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar at UB Law. A former director of the
Law School's Human Rights Center, he teaches in the areas of
international human rights, international business transactions and
international law. Mutua has been a visiting professor at Harvard
Law School, the University of Iowa College of Law, the University
of Puerto Rico School of Law, and the United Nations University for
Peace in Costa Rica.

Mutua was educated at the University of Nairobi, in Kenya; the
University of Dar-Es-Salaam, in Tanzania; and at Harvard Law
School. In 2002-03, while on sabbatical in Kenya, Mutua was
appointed chairman of the Task Force on the Establishment of a
Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission. He also served as a
delegate to the National Constitutional Conference, which produced
a contested draft constitution for Kenya.

His many publications include the textbook "Human Rights: A
Political and Cultural Critique." In addition to human rights
reports for the United Nations and leading nongovernmental
organizations, Mutua has authored dozens of articles for such
popular publications as The New York Times, Boston Globe, Christian
Science Monitor, Daily Nation, East African Standard and The
Washington Post. He also has conducted numerous human rights,
diplomatic and rule of law missions to countries in Africa, Latin
America and Europe.

Mutua recently returned from a weeklong trip to Kenya and
Uganda, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, in which he spoke out
forcefully in defense of homosexual persons, who face an
increasingly hostile political and social environment in
Africa.

Since its founding in 1887, the University at Buffalo Law School
– the State University of New York system's only law school
– has established an excellent reputation and is widely
regarded as a leader in legal education. Its cutting-edge
curriculum provides both a strong theoretical foundation and the
practical tools graduates need to succeed in a competitive
marketplace, wherever they choose to practice. A special emphasis
on interdisciplinary studies, public service and opportunities for
hands-on clinical education makes UB Law unique among the nation's
premier public law schools.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public
university, a flagship institution in the State University of New
York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's
more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through
more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree
programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of
the Association of American Universities.